As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some information handling systems are implemented as multiple processing components configured as part of a single system. A “blade” is a general term often used to refer to one component in a system that is designed to accept some number of components (referred to collectively as “blades”). Blades can be, for example, individual servers that plug into a single cabinet or chassis or individual port cards that add connectivity to a switch. Blades are often hot swappable hardware devices. A “blade server” is a general term often used to refer to a system architecture that houses multiple server modules or blades in a single chassis. Blade servers are widely used, for example, in data centers to save space and improve system management. Either self-standing or rack mounted, the chassis provides the power supply, and each blade has its own CPU, memory and hard disk. Redundant power supplies may also be provided. Blade servers generally provide their own management systems and may include a network or storage switch. With enterprise-class blade servers, disk storage is often external, and the blades are diskless. This approach allows for more efficient fail-over techniques because applications are not tied to specific hardware and a particular instance of the operating system. In such a solution, the blades are typically anonymous and interchangeable.
With the proliferation of blade servers, and as new generation of blades get developed, one recurring problem is the need to support next generation blades in existing chassis instead of requiring the purchase of new chassis for each generation of blade servers. Unfortunately, this problem is made more difficult because each new generation of blades typically consumes more power than the previous generation of blades. This increased power consumption is contributed primarily by newer, faster CPUs, memory technologies, etc. Traditional chassis controllers, however, do not adequately handle mixes of different generations of blades. For example, in a traditional chassis with capacity for ten (10) blades, if nine (9) blades of generation n, n+1, or mixture are present, and a new blade of generation n+1 is added to this chassis, this new blade will often be forced to remain powered down. In particular, the chassis controller firmware will query the BMC (baseboard management controller) or alike on the newly added blade to determine its maximum power consumption level. This maximum power consumption level will typically be relatively high compared to the blades for which the chassis was originally designed. If the addition of this new generation blade results in the total power usage level exceeding what the chassis power supply can provide, which is often the case, the chassis controller will not allow the newly added next-generation blade to operate. In short, existing chassis for blade servers do not efficiently handle power usage level management issues.